Build a Network of Current and Potential Customers

This post is apart of the 3 part series “The Basic Principles behind Building an Online Presence“. This is one of many howto guides featured in my web coaching program, join the group for more tips.

Once your site or sites are up and running, before you even think about marketing your business to new customers, think about the network you already have. If you already have clients, business associates, offline contacts, you have the beginnings of your mailing list. Every successful web entrepreneur maintains a mailing list because it is easier to sell to old clients than new ones. Why, might you ask? Because they already exhibited interest by buying something from you, so they just might buy something else if you keep them in the loop. Don’t spend all your time chasing after the new customer. Work with your old ones and as you get new customers and interested web viewers, you should be adding them to your mailing list to establish a constant line of communication.

Have you noticed that today, practically every site you visit requires that you register on their site? Even if a registration isn’t required, like buying a small product at an online store or reading a news article, sites are giving away incentives and encouraging people to ‘Sign Up’ for fun! The reality is that what is fun for you the viewer is all business for web publishers. Sites with membership areas and mailing lists are designed as such to build a pool of interested viewers worth marketing to. Before the ad campaigns and social networks, your personal mailing list is the best, cheapest, and most effective means by which you can promote your business and make sales.

Therefore, if you are investing all of your efforts into trying to figure out how to build your web presence or advertising online, you need to take some of that time to build up your mailing list and regularly send out emails or newsletters to your network of readers. I talk about setting up newsletters and mailing lists in my eBook, Internet Marketing the Big 5. As you will read in that guide, your goal is ultimately to create an ongoing communication between yourself and all the people interested in what you do. One way websites successfully retain viewers is to keep them engaged through email updates.

This concept is essentially the same principle behind building friend circles on sites like MySpace or Ning. Your goal is to treat these lists of friends like mailing lists, which you can use to promote your business. Believe it or not, I hardly pay for any advertising to promote my businesses mainly because I have worked hard at building great lists. I use feedburner for my blogs, which have a few hundred subscribers. And then I built larger mailings lists through my core business site msoyonline.com, my friend circles on MySpace, and by creating social networks on Ning. Collectively these spaces have given me access to thousands of niche-specific viewers, so now all I have to do is send out a few emails to promote my business to thousands of people a day. Whether I am promoting a new eBook, a discount on a service, or posting content for an advertiser, I am able to reach people who in turn click on my links and increase my sales.

For more details review my eBook, ‘Internet Marketing the Big 5.’

This post is apart of the 3 part series “The Basic Principles behind Building an Online Presence“. This is one of many howto guides featured in my web coaching program, join the group for more tips.